Capitol murder

Chapter Forty-eight

The moment Dana gave the transcript to Bobby Schatz, she was plagued by the knowledge that she would be the instrument of Ron Tolliver’s release. By the time Schatz had pressured Justice into dropping the charges against his client, Dana had decided that there was only one way she could absolve herself of the guilt that was overwhelming her.

Tolliver had been booked into jail wearing a sweat suit the FBI had grabbed from his closet. Bobby Schatz had given Dana the job of buying clothes their client could wear when he was discharged from jail. Dana had sewn a miniature tracking device into a seam of Tolliver’s jeans. She’d purchased it from a contact with sources in the intelligence community. When Tolliver left the jail, Dana followed in the nondescript brown Toyota she used for surveillance, using a GPS to track her target. She was carrying several weapons. She planned to end his life with one of them, but she had higher aspirations. Tolliver would be desperate to get out of the country, and he wouldn’t be able to escape without help. Whom could he turn to? The Spook had told her that Imran Afridi was a man who had made terror his hobby and insisted on running his operations personally. The chances were good that Tolliver would ask Afridi to help him get out of the country. Dana knew what Afridi looked like. If he met Tolliver, she would take out both of them.

The GPS showed that Tolliver had stopped somewhere ahead. The landscape was a bleak collection of vacant lots, shops with OUT OF BUSINESS signs in the windows, check-cashing establishments, bars, and convenience stores. On the horizon was a tall building that showed fire scars and gaping holes where window glass had once been. Next to the abandoned building was a hotel, and this is where the GPS led her.

After Dana parked in front of a shuttered Laundromat across from the hotel, she checked her automatic and the revolver in her ankle holster to make sure she would be prepared if any of the local bad guys were unwise enough to bother her. Then she hunkered down and waited for Tolliver to move.

A little after sunset, a cab stopped in front of the hotel, and Tolliver got into it. Dana followed the cab to Georgetown. It stopped a few blocks from the C amp;O Canal, and Tolliver got out. Luck was with Dana, and she found an empty parking space. Tolliver turned into a side street that led to the walking path that ran along the canal. Dana started after him, but then she sensed movement. A black van pulled to the curb and the doors swung open. She reached for her gun and the prongs of a Taser embedded themselves in her chest. Dana spasmed and collapsed. Seconds later, she was hustled into the van; a needle slipped into a vein, and she passed out.

W hen Dana came to, she was in total darkness and couldn’t be sure if she was awake or still drugged. Then she felt the restraints that secured her wrists and ankles. She flashed back to the basement where the meth dealers had trapped her and panicked, fighting her restraints until she realized that her struggles were futile.

Dana squeezed her eyes shut and forced her breathing to slow. When she was calmer, she tried to figure out where she was being held, but she couldn’t see much even after her eyes adjusted to the dark. There was a pillow under her head. It smelled as if it had been freshly laundered, which gave her a little hope. There was also a clean sheet under her hands.

Dana tried to figure a way out, but there didn’t seem any chance of escape unless her captors made a mistake. And who were they? The lights snapped on just as she was starting to consider this question. She shut her eyes against the glare before opening them slowly. She was secured to the guardrails of a hospital bed in a concrete room with bare walls. Directly ahead was a thick steel door with a small window at the top.

The door opened and Dana tensed. A short man in a tweed jacket, brown-and-yellow striped tie, white shirt, and tan slacks walked in. He was partially bald with a bad comb-over, and his pale brown eyes examined her through wire-rimmed bifocals. Behind him were two bodyguards.

“How are you feeling?” the man in the tweed jacket asked with what appeared to be genuine concern.

“Pissed off,” Dana said.

“Yes, I imagine you are,” the man said in a tone intended to be comforting, “but there is an explanation for your abduction, Miss Cutler. We knew you were following Ronald Tolliver, and we surmised that you were planning on taking action that would have endangered a very important intelligence operation. We couldn’t let you do that, so we neutralized you.”

“Are you going to let me out of here?”

“Definitely. You have nothing to worry about on that score, although we are going to hold you for a little while longer.”

“How much longer?”

“Until we’re certain that everything has gone according to plan.”

“And this plan involves Ron Tolliver?”

“I’m sorry, but you’re not cleared to get information about our operations.”

“Whose operations?”

“Sorry again.”

“Would it do me any good to ask to see a lawyer?”

“I’m afraid not.” The man apologized again. “But tell me, are you hungry? I imagine you are. You might also want to use the restroom,” he said, pointing to a door in one of the walls. “If you promise to be on your best behavior, I’ll have your restraints removed and have dinner brought to you. So what do you say? Can we take off the restraints?”

Dana nodded. “I won’t try anything.”

The man smiled. “That’s an empty promise. I’ve read your file, and I know what you did to those meth cooks. But it would be foolish to try anything with these men. You’d be risking serious injury for no good reason. I assure you that you’ll be released quite soon.”

B y the time Dana’s food was brought to her, the effects of the drug had worn off. She was sore where she’d been Tasered, and there was a knot on the back of her head where her skull had struck the pavement when she fell. Other than that, she was okay.

Dinner was an excellent steak, mashed potatoes, and mixed vegetables. There was even apple pie and coffee, so she deduced that she was a prisoner of an American intelligence agency. No one else visited her, and she started to wonder if she would really be released. At first, the isolation and quiet unnerved her. She used her free time to think about the secret operation she’d stumbled into. Obviously it involved Tolliver, but how was he involved, and was it also focusing on Imran Afridi? After a while, Dana concluded that she had no facts to work with, and she stopped guessing.

There wasn’t a clock in the room, and Dana’s watch had been taken from her, so she had no way to tell time. She went to sleep when she got tired and woke up when her door opened. She guessed it was morning because a guard brought in a tray loaded with orange juice, bacon, eggs, toast, and coffee.

Dana finished breakfast and waited for something else to happen. Nothing did, so she started thinking about the mystery organization that had kidnapped her. She decided that it probably wasn’t the FBI. It was possible that they would kidnap a citizen, but she found that highly unlikely for a domestic law-enforcement organization. That left the CIA as the most likely suspect. They kidnapped foreign terror suspects and held them in secret prisons.

Assuming she’d stumbled into the middle of a CIA plot, what was the Agency up to? She’d been tailing Tolliver when they’d grabbed her, so they didn’t want Dana to interrupt whatever Tolliver was doing, but what was that? If she were in Tolliver’s shoes, she’d be trying to get out of the country as fast as she could. Maybe Tolliver was on his way to meet Afridi. If so, Tolliver was lucky the government had caved when it had. A day or so later, and Afridi would probably have been back in Pakistan.

Dana froze. Something occurred to her. She thought back to the beginning of her involvement in Tolliver’s case, and she reviewed everything she knew about it. By the time she finished, Dana had developed a theory. As soon as she was home, she would test it out, then run her idea past Ginny.

T he door to Dana’s room opened before she was fed another meal, and the man in the tweed jacket walked in with his bodyguards. As far as Dana could tell, he had not changed his clothes.

“You’re going to be released. I hope this hasn’t been too unpleasant.”

“It was great,” Dana answered sarcastically. “Can I book in advance for my next vacation?”

The man smiled. “It’s good to see you’ve retained your sense of humor.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Two days. You got a parking ticket, but don’t worry. We’ve taken care of it.”

“You do work for a powerful organization.”

The man laughed. “I’ve read your file, and I have tremendous respect for you. It’s unfortunate that you had to be detained. It’s also unavoidable that you’ll have to wear a hood when you leave, but we won’t sedate you if you promise to cooperate. You’ll be dropped off by your car.”